Selling by owner, what are the negatives to selling your house yourself?

Looking for all aspects of selling your home yourself. Is it hard, easy, what makes it hard if so, positives, negatives, etc.

Re: Selling by owner, what are the negatives to selling your house yourself?

When we were trying to sell our home last year, I debated it for a long time. We ultimately decided to go with a realtor because I didn't feel comfortable handling the showings or the open house myself. Partly for safety reasons, letting strangers into my home when I had two small children, partly because I think buyers aren't exactly comfortable looking at a house with the homeowner following them around.

Other than that, I couldn't think of any reason not to try selling by owner. You can buy an MLS listing online for around $400, do some inexpensive advertising, your lawyer can handle the paperwork.

Re: Selling by owner, what are the negatives to selling your house yourself?

The negatives are that you have to be the one that is available to show the house when buyers want to see it. My friend just sold her house FSBO. Once she paid the $400 for MLS, she had many interested buyers wanting to see the house. She also threw her own open houses. BUT, she had no life for the time the house was on the market. Her plans were dictated by when people were coming to see the house.

The other negative is that you end up getting 1,000 phone calls or pop ins from realtors trying to solicit your business. When I was selling my house last year FSBO they would call non-stop. In my experience, they were pushy, indirectly insulting and at times rude.

The only other negative I can think of is that once you are in contract, you have to deal with the buyer's realtor or, if they don't have one, you have to do everything yourself and deal with the lawyers. By that I mean scheduling any inspections that may need to be done and again, that requires YOU be the one that is available to let the inspector into your home where if you had a realtor, he/she could do it.

But financially speaking, selling it yourself far outweighs the hassle that goes with it. My friend saved herself thousands of dollars doing it herself.

Re: Selling by owner, what are the negatives to selling your house yourself?

the ones above are good- but wanted to add that realtors will pre-qualify their buyers and make sure that they can afford your house- the worst thing in the world is to get into contract and find out after wasting all that time that the buyer cant afford it and cant get a mortgage for the house

good luck no matter what you decide to do

Re: Selling by owner, what are the negatives to selling your house yourself?

Re: Selling by owner, what are the negatives to selling your house yourself?

Biggest thing I think is pricing the house correctly. I think a lot of homes fsbo are way over priced. If you are selling fsbo you can request that offers have pre approval letters.

Re: Selling by owner, what are the negatives to selling your house yourself?

Thank you all, you made such great points that I never thought of!!!!

I dont like the idea of showing it myself..and i think buyers may not like that either but if they want the house badly enough they would still come see it. So....I may give it a shot when the times comes.

Re: Selling by owner, what are the negatives to selling your house yourself?

Just wanted to add make sure when you do show the house you dont talk too much, we looked at one house where the seller was the real estate agent and the whole time he told us what was wrong with the house, how it could be fixed etc. Just let the house show it self!